by Greg Curtis
“Sera, he has been back only a few hours and already hundreds of these new soldiers are taking the fight to the enemy.”
“I was told.” Of course she was. The queen was told everything, but she still seemed somewhat out of sorts, and Ashiel would have guessed it had nothing to do with her pet wizard’s new spells. It was more likely that if in fact he had been used as a servant of the Goddess, then it not only meant that there were large changes coming in the world, but also that the Goddess had chosen to break the normal order of things, and the dragons, her usual servants, had been missed out. That was unusual, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe it was a slap in the face for her oldest and most important servants. Of course there were reasons for it, and chief among them was the fact that Alan was a druid. He had magic that the dragons didn’t. Their magic was innate, bound within their flesh and they did not cast spells. But Sera was never one to remain upset for long.
“So it would seem the Goddess has chosen a new or rather an old path and a new servant. First Kingdom druids, the oldest of mages returned to their true strength. Still at least she has chosen to give you a more pleasing form.” That drew a polite chuckle from the other dragons, a sound more akin to thunder rumbling in the rocks all around them than laughter, but it also made Ashiel smile. And in truth it wasn’t an ugly form, though if as Esille had said he was stuck in it, it would no doubt become frustrating. Hands were very useful things, along with a human throat to speak with and a human sized body. As it stood she rather imagined that he was going to have problems squeezing through the doorways to his home.
“Go. Find yourself a chamber in the lair for the night and in the morning you may begin your preparations for the war anew.”
It was a dismissal and Alan bowed low, another awkward gesture that threatened to send him toppling onto his front, before making his way out of the chamber. No sooner had he left then a small tribe of children made their excuses among the audience and took off after him, and if Ashiel had had a piece of copper to bet, she would have wagered they were going to ask for a ride. They loved the dragons, imagining them a cross between a pet and a monster, and so they spent their days constantly asking for rides and stories, or running away in mock fear when one growled back at them. Now it seemed that they had a new, smaller dragon to play with, one just the right size for riding.
Ashiel tried to keep her smile from showing too much and didn’t completely succeed. With hundreds of children calling the lair home these days, the druid was about to become very busy in the next few days.
Chapter Twenty Six.
“You asked for me Sera?” Alan bowed as best he was able before the fiery image of the queen in her chamber, noticing again that even though it was only an image and that the queen was at least four days dragon flight away, she still seemed so real and so present that he could almost reach out and touch her. But then that was a part of her magic. She was the queen to all the dragons, not just those of her lair, and so she had to be present in every lair on every continent all the time. So the very first chamber that was ever built in any lair was the royal chamber, where her presence could be known by all, and where she could hold audiences without ever being there.
“Yes young Alan. You are still in draglet form?” She seemed surprised even though she knew the facts. For all the new powers the Lady had gifted him, and he was still exploring them with Ant and the other members of the House, she seemed to have exacted a price as she’d removed his ability to transform. He was stuck like this until something changed or he learnt the secret of the form. But then that was her intent.
It wasn’t a bad form he had to admit, even if nobody knew what to call him and most had settled on calling him a draglet as a description. But it had its short comings. Along with the strength, the ability to fly and cast fire, and the obvious protection the form gave him, it was still not designed for human type living. His bed was too small for him as his tail and head flopped down over both ends, doorways were too narrow as they had never been designed for wings and he had difficulty folding them up tight, he had no hands to hold things like books or cups of tea, and the lack of ability to speak in human or elven tongues was an annoyance. The one night he had spent in his cottage had proven to him that he was no longer built for such things. He was actually more comfortable in the lair where others could understand him, except that there, he was a draglet, smaller than a drake, smaller than even a hatchling dragon, and nobody really knew what to make of him there either. Except occasionally to giggle, quietly, and sometimes not so quietly.
One of the most powerful druids in the land, imprisoned in a small dragon’s body! It was actually quite amusing and many times he’d found himself the butt of people’s jokes. The Huron especially seemed to enjoy it, and the children in the lair would rush around all day playing small tricks at his expense. Their favourite was to bring him a cup of tea and then giggle as he tried to drink it without hands. But he forgave them quickly enough. It was good to see them enjoying themselves in the midst of what was surely a terrifying time, and a simple growl usually was enough to send them running, still laughing of course.
A pair of small quicksilver elementals made up for some of his deficits, as they held things for him, such as cups of tea, fed him, and even held books and scrolls open for him to read, so that he could continue with his studies. They couldn’t speak for him, but with patience and some large pieces of charcoal, they could write what he needed them to. He should have kept some of the small golems he’d crafted for translating and copying scrolls as they had the most nimble of fingers, but the library in Heartsong had them all, and he hadn’t made any more. They were quite a complex elemental, and by the end of a day of summoning others, he was simply too tired. He had to settle for simply casting his thoughts into the air instead.
“It seems that I am stuck like this for a while.” Yet somehow he knew that this form would not be his forever. The Lady had also left that knowledge in his mind. The form was his till the battle was over. It might be inconvenient, it might leave him with unexpected problems as he occasionally burped fire and knocked things over with his tail and wings, but it was strong and hardy, and the Lady cared nothing for her servant’s convenience, only his continuing service. Only until he had done what the lady had asked of him and destroyed the necromancer, and to that end he had to admit they had been making good progress.
Already in a mere two weeks of summoning more lightnings and infernos every day, thousands of his elementals were now filling the lands, destroying the undead wherever they arose, and gradually forcing the armies back towards the necromancer’s gorge. Though the necromancer had vast resources within his reach and could raise more and more undead, none of them could seriously damage his new elementals, and so each and every day each one of his elementals might destroy thirty, forty or even fifty of the necromancer’s soldiers, while in turn the elementals’ own numbers just grew. And none of those they destroyed would ever be able to be raised again. They had no bones left after each attack, and without at least some sort of corpse, there was nothing to raise. When he eventually ran out of corpses the necromancer would find himself helpless. At least that was Alan’s hope. Given that he was an ancient there were no guarantees.
Dragon fire likewise, was taking a devastating toll on the larger armies, although the battle wasn’t completely one sided. The necromancer’s bone dragons, which were still awake and flying too early in the cycle as far as he was concerned, were able to harm even their living cousins, and the Huron were busy in the lair preparing great poultices for their hosts and defenders and tending to them. It was an unexpected turn of events for the once mighty ancients as they found themselves not just without their magic, but now servants to those who had once guided them to greatness and whom they had then betrayed. But for all that the Huron seemed to enjoy the role. When this battle was over he suspected that more than a few would choose to remain in service. Some in time he suspected, would become members of her House, and
in time, druids like him.
That day he hoped, might not be that far away. The necromancer must be steaming in his boots as he saw his unstoppable armies being beaten back day by day but more than that, hopefully he was rediscovering fear.
Alan had hopes that in even as little as another month, they would have driven the necromancer all the way back to the gorge, and from there the final battle could begin. But of course hopes and reality were not always the same thing, and every day he worried that the necromancer had found a defence against his elementals and the dragons. Which was why he worried whenever Sera called for him. It could be bad news. Too often it was.
“At least it is not a bad form for a wizard, and one never before known for your kind. In time I suspect your knowledge of the form will be in demand as others will try to learn it.” Spoken by a creature that had never had hands or a human voice to miss, but Alan knew she meant well even if she didn’t understand. He did however wonder who the others were who might try to learn the form. Very few could shape change at all, for the skill was mostly only used by dryads, and they only used it to remain concealed as they hid in their groves, transforming their skin into seeming bark and leaves.
Then again Dava he recalled had been perceptive in his naming dark elves and dryads as cousins. They shared much of the same magic including some spells of camouflage and physical alteration, and he knew that some of them could shape change fully as he could. It was also their magical knowledge passed down through his mother after all that had been the source of his first elemental summoning magic, though the elementals they summoned were mainly of wood and wind. They might not be the greatest of warriors but many tens of thousands of them were also out waging war on the undead. Besides, shape-shifting was an excellent way to stay hidden, creep into town undetected or defend oneself, all good skills for a people in hiding, and he had no idea how many dark elves were actually out there. He had to ask.
“Do you know of others with the magic Great Queen?” He rather suspected she might. It would be a surprise in some ways, but not in others. He was certain that the dragons had far more knowledge than he yet guessed. When they had trained him in his new forms, the teachers had used ancient texts, preserved and copied from the days of the First Kingdom. Texts that he now knew had been written by the druids who had arisen in the days after the Huron’s terrible war. First Kingdom druids who had begun with the dragons the great task of healing the world. But those druids had long since passed on, and their descendants had only a fraction of their gifts. The ones who had taught him had been the dragons themselves, and one dryad who had some skill. In all his time in the lair or elsewhere he’d met no others with the same proficiency. On the other hand the dragons had knowledge far beyond anyone else, and they had barely begun to teach him.
“Several in fact, of your mother’s people. Those on Flinders Shard still retain much of their people’s knowledge, and they share much of the same magic as you. A handful of them are on their way to you now, to teach and to learn.” To say Alan was shocked by her casual words would have been an understatement, and for the longest time he could barely think let alone do or say anything. But then he had cause.
Flinders Shard was an island, a mythical one, where many of the dark elves had been said to have fled after the Everliving had first been summoned. Fleeing their demon blooded cousins and the other elves both. It was rumoured to be a place of great magic and vast riches, and over the years hundreds had gone hunting it. But no one had ever found it, and many had returned empty handed and lucky to be alive. Many others hadn’t returned at all. That wasn’t surprising since it was also a thousand leagues or more east of the eastern coast, perpetually lost in fog, surrounded by eternal storms, and with all sea currents running away from it. At least that was what the stories told in a thousand taverns said. In fact most of them spoke of reefs where ships by their scores had been ripped apart, while others had been blown hundreds and thousands of leagues off course, never to return again. That last was perhaps not so surprising when their compasses apparently didn’t work around the island either.
Yet none of that compared with the fact that a handful of his people were coming to visit. In all his life Alan had never met more than a dozen dark elves, and one of them was his mother, another his grandmother, the rest other stragglers who had hidden out in the various dryad groves and human cities. Besides, in all the world he was not aware of any permanent settlement of dark elves anywhere, or as far as he’d known there hadn’t been. Now suddenly it seemed that there was such a settlement and that it might have much of his people’s most ancient knowledge and magic. Who knew what he could learn? And who knew what the other elves might think if and when they suddenly discovered the island was not only real but peopled with dark elves?
Of course, he slowly realised, there was probably a reason why the dragons knew of the island and its people. Why they knew so much and could teach him so well about his own magic. And it wasn’t just because their main lair was also somewhere out in the great ocean. He’d just been too slow to think about it.
“Great One, is Flinder’s Shard the home of one of your people’s lairs?” Somehow he suspected that not only was the answer yes, but so too would be the answer to his very next question when he asked if the dark elves there served the dragons. It simply made sense. And they hadn’t told him. Then again they hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else. And if what he suspected was true and the elves found out that their copper skinned cousins were being sheltered by the dragons, perhaps even that many of them had become members of the House of Sera, there would be a few noses put out of joint. But he figured they could live with that.
“But of course little one. And it is also the base for one of the House’s teaching academies. Our most advanced druids spend many a year there before being sent out into the mainland to do their service. In time we would have sent you there to train had not this evil arisen. Now instead, we must bring many of their masters here to help you fight, something we were loath to do.”
“Because they are dark elves?”
“Because it means drawing them away from their other duties. Flinder’s Shard is where we train our most powerful druids, those of the First Kingdom like yourself, so that they can return here and continue with the restoration of the lands. It is through such people and places that we can restore the lands to their former glory as quickly as we can. Their race is of no importance.” Except of course that it was Alan realised, since dark elves would have been set upon by their cousins had they shown up in elven lands. But now perhaps that would change, and perhaps more would change as well.
If dark elf druids were to start wandering freely once more through elven lands, helping with the restoration of the world, perhaps a lot more would change. Particularly if the bond between dark elves and the House of Sera also became known. The fact that the new, or rather ancient creatures that the Lady had restored to life had also started walking the lands again would also signal changes ahead. Then the magic of the druids would become paramount.
And the dark elves were he guessed, the descendants of the First Kingdom druids, which explained his gift. That was going to raise some eyebrows. The most powerful of the druids were apparently dark elves! He would have loved to have seen the expressions on the other elves’ faces when they learned that.
“I shall look forward to meeting them.”
Chapter Twenty Seven.
It was warm on the terrace and Alan was welcoming the sun’s heat to him, taking comfort in the fact that it still kept rising every day. Not everything else of late was so certain. He still spent his days raising his armies, and now many thousands of his elementals roamed the lands destroying the undead, and that was good. But still it seemed the necromancer was not without resources, and his armies didn’t stop either. Instead they seemed to grow more powerful, with bone dragons starting to appear over all the skies, making life difficult for even the dragons. Worse, the walking dead were cunning, sneaking behind l
ines and causing death and destruction wherever they went, and he feared the numbers killed would be terrible.
Calumbria was abandoned, the people of the entire southern realm gone, now residing somewhere in the more southern lands. Three million or more people, gone. And with it of course, Silver Falls had vanished. He had returned to the town one night after he had finished summoning, and found it empty and sad. All the people he knew, all his friends were missing including Rosalie. But at least they weren’t dead, he hoped, and in time, when this battle was won, they would return.
Maybe Rosalie would return.
He missed her, though it surprised him to realise how much. He even missed her father, whose conversation seemed to consist mainly of shooing him away whenever the two of them had become too close, and warning him of dire consequences should he dare to go too far with her. Maybe it was just that he missed his old life. Maybe he missed simply being able to wander into town whenever he wanted and play a game of hoops or share a drink and some tall tales with friends in the inns. It had been a good time, a good life, and never had there been a hint of the troubles coming. But it wasn’t his place to complain, especially when he was sure she was safe. Too many others weren’t.